How do you define someone as common?

My father used the word 'common' a lot. We went on holiday to Pontins once because he said that Butlins was posh. As soon as a lot of people liked something, we couldn't like it too so we didn't get ITV for ages and I was totally out of the loop with all the children talking about Popeye. Someone told me that we were common once because my mother brought the milk in from the front step in her (perfectly respectable) dressing gown. Her mother apparently always got dressed first.
I don't think people use the word quite so much any more which would be good except that worse words have replaced it and poor baiting TV shows have become the norm.

All that Wilma said plus holding one’s () knife like a pencil and having a cup of tea with a meal instead of something in a glass.

Scouse brows are those thick, immaculately pencilled brows that Liverpool girls ,especially, seem to love. Only the common ones, of course!
Along with eating in the street or smoking, not wearing your school beret when in public and most of the things other posters have put, my Mum insisted that fringes (hair) were common, girls whistling......I could go on.
As for what's in a name! I've always hated mine and cringe when I hear it, even now.

Tattoos, facial piercings, bras straps on display, smoking, eating and drinking on the street (and I include coffee), dummies, decorated prams, constant phone use, fat people in tight clothes, crocs, slippers and pajamas out of doors, leggings on fat people, leggings in summer, caterpillar eyebrows, thick make up, unnatural coloured hair, shaven heads, roots showing, partially shaven heads, short skirts on ugly legs, very low cut tops, children with earnings, men with earnings, .................
I'm enjoying this too much I have to stop now before I offend absolutely everyone.

Tomato sauce on a roast was one of my mother's and mine too she would go as far to say it was an insult to the cook as well as common

My mother thought all piercings were "common", as was dyed hair. I have pierced ears and have my hair coloured every six weeks - what would she think? I can't cope with tattoos.

Reciting a poem in French wouldn’t have been a punishment to me, Bellanonna. I’d have loved doing it.

My mum thought short skirts, tons of make up and crop tops were common. I think going to the shops in your pjs and slippers is. Amazing how the world has changed

We were told to behave with decorum at all times. Can’t see that happening today. Although, in fact, are there many convent schools still in existence? A favourite punishment for minor misdemeanours was detention and having to learn a poem in French, then to be recited to the French mother superior. I had a nice little repertoire by the time I left!

Sorry, my post should have been to Marydoll.

That might get the attention of the Daily Mail Nellie. I can definitely see the headline now

Grannys reveal the truth about life at a convent school!

Nelliemoser, do we need to start a thread about the trauma of being a convent girl? (That's what we were called in the town) I bet there are some wonderful stories to be told.

Common is tattoos, piercings, orange foundation and clown's eyebrows.
Too short skirts on older women and vest tops with bra straps showing, same goes for younger women if they are above a size12. Too tight trousers on anyone.

This is another thread where a lot of former convent school girls start posting about their school days with less than happy memories. Things have improved in the last 40 yrs.

My dear Mum would refer to "scrubbers" - women who went out in their rollers (curlers) - they were an all too common sight where I was brought up.
The phrase I often hear nowadays referring to people thought of as common is "pond-life".

Only posh kids went to grammars.
ha ha
well, they gave us elocution lessons to try to knock our regional accents out of us and make us sound posh.

trisher my Dad used the bookie at the pub, not a betting shop and the priest was always in the pub on a Friday night. The priests always drank like fishes and of course, they never had to buy a drink!

I'm grinning at the image of some of you grans wearing a hat all day as a punishment. It's like the posh version of the dunce's cap (did they exist outside comics?)

My Dad may have given in about me getting my hair cut at 14, but I had to wait until I was 16 to get my ears pierced.

Where I come from in Scotland we used the word ory (sp?) for common, so something would be ory, or dead ory if it was a younger person speaking. I think Purpledaffodil is probably right in saying the younger generation today would say chavvy.

No one who went to a grammar school could possibly be common. Only posh kids went to grammars. Grammar convent schools were extra posh. Galen, you are from a different universe.

It was thought to be common if your bra straps were showing

At my grammar school anyone caught outside the school with no hat would have to wear her hat in school for a whole day. One of my friends was sent to the headmistress because she was seen talking to a dustman in the street!!! He was actually her ice dancing partner and working as a dustman to finance his training.

Another convent grammar school sufferer here. The Grammar school was called ‘The Friary’ and was a boarding school and even stricter than the convent!
I don’t know of anyone else whose attended a convent and a Friary?

1964/5 and I was desperate to wear black stockings (long before tights were invented!)
Not the sheer sexy stockings we think of today but probably at least 70 denier heavy weight things and prone to laddering at the slightest snag!
But mother said NO! They were so common, along with "Beatle suits", short skirts and " Sloppy Joe sweaters!
Oh to have the freedom of today's generations.

Re betting shops. My ex MIL was a bookies runner ( pre betting shops) and my ex FIL was a professional gambler.

We had a mysterious little betting shop hut with blacked out windows in our pub yard. In 1967 I was allowed to watch the Grand National on TV with my dad and the pub regulars in the snug, sitting there with my pop and crisps, and someone indulged me by putting on a bet of my choice. I can’t remember how much I won on Foinavon at 100 to 1, but I was the only one smiling at the finish line!

ChristineFrance My DF was in the army, so we were constantly on the move. This is why army children still are usually sent to boarding school at 11. Mind you 10 schools does not compare with the 21 'permanent' home addresses in my first 21 years when he retired.

I am not sure how or why convent girls got this reputation for wildness. There were some, but no more than in any other school. Unreasonable expectations that we would some how be patterns of virtue, I assume.